


once upon a lullaby

by nickofhearts



Series: like the sun loves the moon [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Kidfic, Nox & Lux, SUFFER FOR YOUR SINS ARDYN, i was feeling sad about the other fic i'm writing wherein ardyn is a raging douchebag, so have this silliness instead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 04:36:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10937142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickofhearts/pseuds/nickofhearts
Summary: Ardyn is a single father.





	once upon a lullaby

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamingcicadas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamingcicadas/gifts).



_I left you a present!!_ read Gentiana's text, which was worrisome at best and possibly incriminating at worst, considering the kinds of trouble they used to get up to when they'd been at law school together.

Ardyn opened his front door with not a small amount of trepidation, and was faced with two squalling babies in a basket. 

He immediately closed it again. "What...the fuck."

-

Lux was having a screaming fit on the floor of the supermarket checkout aisle—an impressive feat, seeing as he was simultaneously crying, screaming, and also sicking up something that looked both disgusting and also concernedly vividly multi-coloured. Had he been eating crayons again? 

" _I wan' candy!!!_ " he bawled for the tenth time, while Ardyn pointedly ignored him.

Nox was thankfully still calm, the gentler of the twins, or at least the sneakier. _He_ wasn't prone to dramatic displays of hysterics to get what he wanted. 

He _was_ , however, prone to being unduly influenced towards ill-advised schemes by his brother. Ardyn fixed him with a look as Nox glanced between his twin, then Ardyn, then back to Lux. 

" _Don't you dare,_ " Ardyn snarled.

Nox shrugged, then joined in the bawling, upping the stakes by pulling items off the shelves and throwing them fitfully to the ground.

Everyone in a five-meter radius was staring at Ardyn and the hellions that had somehow been birthed half from his genome. "Use a fucking condom," Ardyn told them all.

-

"I can't eat that," Lux gasped.

"Why _not,_ " Ardyn growled in response, wondering what it was _now._ The twins were singularly picky about their food, but never in tandem.

Nox, for example, was tearing enthusiastically into his steak, while Lux pushed his plate back at Ardyn.

"Animals are our _friends,_ Arr."

 _Are you serious?!,_ Ardyn wanted to scream, but refrained, barely.

"We watched a documentary in school today about how cows are processed," Nox explained when Ardyn flicked a glance at him, though it didn't seem to be deterring _him_ from viciously devouring his steak. "It was pretty gross."

Lux turned big watery eyes on Ardyn. "They murder the _babies,_ " he wailed.

"I dearly wish someone had murdered _you_ when you were babies," Ardyn muttered, but both twins just gave him the most unimpressed looks possible at their age. It appeared that death threats tended to lose their flavour when Ardyn utilized them on a daily basis. Who knew.

He grudgingly fixed Lux a large salad, watching as Lux munched away satisfactorily on the greens and Nox made a grossed out face at him.

"That's _rabbit food,_ Luxerella!"

"At least I'm not a baby killer, Noxious!"

That started the twins flinging bits of food at each other while Ardyn studiously ignored them, opting instead to finish off the steak that Lux had rejected. He'd learned after many _many_ trials and errors that it was far better to let them wear themselves out playfighting than to attempt to wrestle them into bed at the end of the day when they still had miles of energy to burn.

-

"No bath! No bath!" the twins chanted, running through Ardyn's legs when he tried to snatch them up and just _throw_ them into the water.

"Noooooo Arrrrrrr!!!" Lux wailed when Ardyn finally caught him.

"You _smell,_ " Ardyn told the squirming toddler in his grip, then dunked Lux under the water.

Lux burst into tears.

Nox sidled up to Ardyn with a disapproving glare. He gingerly got into the bath and started washing Lux's hair, Lux relaxing into it and quieting down after a few minutes. 

Ardyn mistakenly let the relative calm lull him into a sense of complacency, sputtering as he suddenly got a face full of soapy water and two snickering twins now chanting—"Bath for Arr! Bath for Arr!!" while launching sprays of water at him that went everywhere in the room except for where it was supposed to, which was _washing the twins._

An hour later, Ardyn toweled off two sparkling clean twins, his _own_ one-of-a-kind designer clothing soaked beyond saving.

-

"It's my turn!" Lux yelled, snatching the psp out of Nox's hands. Nox immediately pinched him on the side, making Lux shriek, and then claimed the psp back and the sounds of whatever game had the twins so enthralled started up again. 

Ardyn counted silently to five, which was how long it took for Lux to explode, screaming bloody murder as he tried to claw the game out of his brother's hands again. The whole car shook. 

Ardyn breathed in, then out, then in, then out, remembering the lusciously pale curves of Gentiana's legs and how they'd done this to him. He was suddenly filled with rage, and slammed on the brakes, pulling the car over to the side of the road with a grinding screech.

" _You,_ " he snarled, turning to glare at them both.

The twins stared at him with identical expressions of wide-eyed innocence. Both their hands were gripping the psp, knuckles white with tension. Ardyn held out his own hand meaningfully, and immediately, both twins' expressions turned mulish. He ducked just in time to narrowly avoid a concussion by psp.

-

"Arrooooo," Lux howled, pattering around the floor on all fours. 

"Arrr arrr arrroooooo," Nox echoed, also on all fours.

Ardyn didn't want to know. He _really_ didn't. He let it go on for a full hour, the twins howling " _arrrrroooooo_ " in unison as they gazed up at him soulfully, before he finally broke. 

"What are you _doing?_ "

"We're werewolves!!" Nox declared excitedly. 

"Arroooo!" Lux agreed.

"Halloween is in _six months,_ " Ardyn lamented.

"You're the moon, Arrrroooooooo," they told him as one, completely unconcerned.

-

Ardyn sighed, folding his legs up to sit in the uncomfortably small seat as the twins' teacher gave him a stern and serious look. " _Mr._ Izunia—"

"What have they done now?" Ardyn demanded, cutting directly to the chase. Nox and Lux had both been uncommonly bad-tempered all day, first spilling juice on his white dress shirt, then clinging to his legs and crying while he'd been trying to leave, a clear sign that the teacher was about to tell him something neither of them wanted him to know.

She frowned at the interruption, pursing her lips. 

Ardyn granted her the same dead-eyed look that made felons convicted of first degree murder blurt out all their secrets to him, and yet had no effect on the twins, in return.

"It's my belief that Lux may need remedial tutoring. It may even be possible that he requires a professional evaluation of whether medical aids might be necessary to help his concentration. Conversely, Nox appears to be holding himself back to prevent us from advancing him with the other gifted students. This co-dependency is detrimental to both their development, and my recommendation at this point is to move them to separate classes immediately."

"What," Ardyn said. The twins were in _kindergarten._

"I understand this is hard for a parent to hear, especially a single father such as yourself with a full-time job on top of two difficult children—"

" _Fuck you,_ " Ardyn told her, and stormed out of the room. 

He returned home to find the twins entwined on the couch, fast asleep. No doubt, they were worn out from their earlier antics. Ardyn picked one up in each arm and carried them to their room. He watched them sleep, their tiny chests rising and falling with each breath, and thought: he wouldn't trade them for _anything._

-

Nox poked his head into Ardyn's study the next morning, even though it was an unbreakable rule that they were forbidden from disturbing him before 9 o'clock. Ardyn sighed. He supposed it was fine to allow it this once due to extenuating circumstances, and motioned for Nox to enter and come around the desk, where Ardyn picked him up and set him on his lap. 

Nox fidgeted anxiously. "Lux isn't _stupid,_ " he finally blurted out, staring Ardyn down. "He just thinks differently. I have to explain things to him because the teachers don't do it right." 

Nox stuck out his bottom lip defiantly in a pout, daring Ardyn to argue.

"I know," Ardyn told him. He took off his glasses and set them on the table. It looked like he wasn't going to get any more work done this morning with one twin only slightly reassured, and the other one most likely hiding out under the bed or stress-eating all the ice cream again.

Nox tucked his much tinier hand in Ardyn's and snuggled against his side. " _Good._ "

-

It was rare for either of the twins to still be up when Ardyn checked in on them before he turned in for the night, but Lux was staring at him with big doleful eyes when Ardyn opened the door. He entered the room and took a seat next to the bed to see what was keeping his generally more carefree twin awake.

Lux chewed on his lip, then asked softly. "Why doesn't mum want us?"

Ardyn felt the question like a punch to the gut. Somehow, he'd never anticipated the twins' curiosity in this one area.

"Is it...because of me?"

" _No,_ " Ardyn told him, immediately cutting off that line of thought. He ranted at the twins daily that they were a nuisance and he _detested_ them, but they all knew he didn't really mean it.

Lux waited, uncharacteristically patient for once in his life.

"It's because of me," Ardyn finally said, lifting the covers for Lux to climb out and throw his small arms around Ardyn's neck. "She's punishing me for my misdeeds in our youth." He tickled Lux gently, making him giggle, but Lux was still giving him the most serious look Ardyn had ever seen on his small face. "Joke's on her," Ardyn told him, a truth he'd never admitted even to himself. " _I've_ got the both of you, and she's got nothing but regret."

Lux squeezed him around the neck. "I love you, Arr."

Ardyn kissed him on the forehead and tucked him back into bed with his brother. When Ardyn was sure they were both asleep, he murmured softly: "I love you too, you little shits."


End file.
